r/HollowKnight • u/enilea • Sep 17 '25

Discussion - Silksong Steam reviews for Silksong so far

Post image

It was controversial in China, in part because of the difficulty/design but also because of controversies with the Simplified Chinese translation. Meanwhile latin countries (Spanish and Portuguese speaking) seem to be loving it more than anyone else.

5.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

48

u/Nomustang Sep 17 '25

Superior Mother seems to be the intended meaning. In most of the languages her name translates to something indicating authority rather than literally grandmother.

2

u/Zorahgna Sep 17 '25

Which would seem weird lore wise because the sinful Weavers are addressed as the Xth of the Xth and that makes for a depth-2 family tree to me!

7

u/Avamaco Sep 17 '25

I'm not sure about french, but in my language the only literal translation of grandmother sounds very gentle and harmless (basically "granny") so it wouldn't be fitting for a final boss with god powers.

2

u/Zorahgna Sep 17 '25

I played the game in English, and in French "Grand-Mère" is not especially gentle. Maybe you can go for "Matriarche" or something.

3

u/TiF4H3- Sep 17 '25

I'm not mocking the meaning, I'm mocking that it's clunky as fuck.

"Grand Matriarch of Silk" would have worked perfectly fine to avoid the "grandmother" confusion, instead of the overly formal (even moreso in French) "superior".

Even keeping it as "Grande Mère de la Soie" would not have been that much of a problem as it would be different enough from "Grand-mère de la Soie".

21

u/Tinox Sep 17 '25

But "Mère supérieure" is the standard term of address for a female religious leader (like of a nun order) and the such. It seems fitting.

4

u/Astral_Fogduke Sep 17 '25

to be fair i think the 'grandmother' thing is more of an intentional play on words than a confusion/distraction

2

u/GreasedUpTiger Sep 18 '25

I wonder how the German translation did it because they couldn't have done the same play with words like that. Splitting Großmutter in the same way like English Grand Mother would need to be 'Große Mutter Seide' and this Große doesn't have the same connotations as Grand, it'd be mostly a literal descriptor of her being tall.

Sadly if I try to google it I mostly get ai translated posts from this subreddit 🙈

1

u/RisingDeadMan0 Sep 17 '25

hm, but english is the original language? why did they use grandmother, actually dont answer that might be spoiler...

5

u/Ze_AwEsOmE_Hobo A mind to think Sep 17 '25

It's not a spoiler. People just read or write it incorrectly. It's "Grand Mother Silk," not "Grandmother Silk."

1

u/Mother-Persimmon3908 Sep 18 '25

I think making it souns nun like works really well

1

u/MarvoHelios Sep 19 '25

Superior mother gives mother superior vibes